Every Rose Has Its Thorns
by Seraphim2178
Summary: Athyr Ishtar and Bakura, King of Thieves, have never been able to love anyone. When the two accidentally see each other, love blossoms like a red rose in spring. But the two are soon to discover that every rose has its thorns…
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh.

"Ohhhhh...look how adorable she is!" Athyr Ishtar, the Priestess of Hathor, stared down at the tiny baby in her arms. She handed the tiny bundle to her daughter, Ishizu. Her son, Marik, leaned over to take a look.

"Eww," he said, wrinkling his nose. "It's a girl."

Ishizu glared at him and then looked back at her new little sister. Big brown eyes stared back up at her as the baby took in her surroundings. A smile spread across the six year old's face. She held her out to her little brother. "Marik, do you want to hold her?"

"No way." The four year old stepped away from his sibling, and then came back and took the bundle. "Well...she's kinda cute...she looks like me actually."

Athyr rolled her eyes and exchanged glances with her daughter. Just at that moment, her husband came in and sat down beside her. "Have you decided what we're going to name her?"

She turned up and smiled at him with her big brown eyes. "Athyr, just like me!"

Approximately 10 months later

"Tag, you're it!" Marik accidentally smacked Ishizu so hard that she fell down. "Ow, that hurt!" she shouted chasing after her laughing little brother.

The children ran about, laughing and playing, as their parents watched them. The adults smiled as they discussed the future of their children.

"Oh, I simply can't believe that one day our children are going to become the future priests and priestesses of Egypt."

"Yes, they'll be serving the little pharaoh."

"Oh, but Yami's so cute. I can't imagine him being the serious pharaoh."

It was true. You could never tell that the four year old little boy toddling around was going to be the pharaoh.

"Aw, look. He's going to see the baby again." The adults tried to hide their smile as little Yami wandered over to little Athyr again. The baby was sitting watching her two older siblings fight. She turned her head and focused her big brown eyes on Yami as he kneeled before her.

Her mother chuckled as she watched her daughter sit and stare at Yami as she tried to talk to her. _I wouldn't be surprised if she married the pharaoh_, she smiled.

Marik ran over to Yami and pulled on his spiky blond hair. "Hey, Spikey. Why do ya keep talking to my sister? She's justa girl, ya know!"

His sister immediately pummeled him. "Hey. What's wrong with girls?"

All three immediately started fighting as little Athyr stared in wide-eyed wonder at them. Her mother scooped her up and carried her off towards home. "Come on, little one. You must sleep."

Athyr stared over her mother's shoulder. Back to where Yami was still arguing with her siblings. "Ya-mi," she whispered before she fell asleep to the rocking motion of her mother's arms.

Athyr placed her millennium necklace on the nightstand and climbed into her bed. It had been a long day; trying to pry Ishizu and Marik apart from their latest argument and having the baby suddenly wake up from her nap and be very grouchy. Now, all three were in bed and sleeping soundly. She could finally sleep. As she started to drift off she was dimly aware of the glowing millennium necklace and the golden eye symbol that suddenly appeared on her forehead. _I must be having a premonition_, she thought as she closed her eyes.

An image of her two elder children in the years to come appeared before her, talking and still arguing over trivial things. They appeared to be in the council of priests and priestesses, along with the other children that had grown up. _Ah, yes. There are Ishizu and Marik. Ishizu appears to be around 20, so Marik must be somewhere around 18. But where is Athyr?_

Her youngest child appeared and joined her siblings. Athyr gasped in amazement at her daughter. She was strikingly beautiful. Her mother could only stare in wonder as every male head in the council turned except for Marik, who simply looked up and then muttered, "Oh, it's Athyr," before turning back and renewing the current argument with Ishizu.

_My daughter. I never imagined she would be so beautiful, _mused Athyr as she watched her daughter cross the room. Suddenly the room became blurry and changed into another scene.

A grown and incredible handsome Yami was standing with young Athyr. He was holding her hand in his, and slipping a beautifully elaborate ring onto this hand. _O praise the gods!_ Athyr silently cried. _My daughter is going to marry the pharaoh!_ Before she could see any more, everything went blurry again.

Now young Athyr was sitting on a bed in a room somewhere; her mother couldn't quite make it out. A young man entered and the two embraced. A discussion between the two of them began. Athyr couldn't hear what they were saying, but she noticed the worried tones in their voices as the scene changed once more.

Now she was in the courtyard of the palace. Athyr took one look below her and cried out in despair. The young man before was kneeling on the ground with her daughter in his arms sobbing while Yami stood several feet away, tears streaming down his face. Her daughter was dead.

Athyr's husband was just settling down when he heard a strangled cry from the direction of his wife's bedroom. He ran in the direction of her room as fast as he could.

"Athyr! What's wrong?" he cried as he burst open the door. He found his wife kneeling on the floor with her hands over her face. He pried them away and was nearly blinded by the golden eye symbol that was blazing fiercely on her forehead.

"Athyr..." she gasped out. "Athyr's...gonna...die...please...help her..." With a final sigh she collapsed on the floor.

The pharaoh balanced his toddler son on his hip as he looked at Athyr lying in the bed. "Something must have upset her pretty bad," he observed.

"Is Mother going to be ok?" asked Ishizu. "Of course she will be," Marik snapped, but even he seemed worried.

"Hmmmm," mused the pharaoh as he looked at the eye on her head. He reached out and touched it. Immediately everything that Athyr had seen was absorbed into his brain. He stepped backwards in shock.

He quickly set little Yami down and shooed the children out. "We need to be alone for a moment."

When they had gone, he settled down and looked Athyr's husband straight in the eye. "Your wife had a premonition. When Athyr grows older, she is going to die."

Marik pressed his ear to the door. Yami sat behind him. "What are they talking about in there, Marik?"

"Ah, I don't know." The little boy sat down dejectedly. "Can't unnerstand nuttin'."

"Doesn't sound good though," added Ishizu.

Athyr sat and watched the three children squabble and try to figure out what was going on. When Ishizu had carried her into her mother's room, she had looked at the symbol on her forehead and immediately seen everything. She of course didn't know the beautiful young girl was she, but she had felt sad.

She yawned, curled up on the floor and went to sleep. The three children immediately became quiet and turned their attention towards her. Ishizu picked her up. "Poor thing," she muttered. "She was woken up from all the commotion."

"I'm tired, too," yawned Yami. "We should get some sleep," said Ishizu. Both stared at Marik until he finally sighed, pouted, and said, "Oh ALL RIGHT."

"Sh- sh - she's going to die?"

"I'm afraid so. Now I know you're in shock now, but there is a way to change the future."

"What is it?"

"You must betroth her to my son. Athyr has predicted the future for me before; my son will grow to be strong. He'll take good care of her. But there's something else. You MUST find a way to conceal her beauty from the rest of the world. The priests and priestesses are fine, but NO ONE ELSE must EVER see her. Understand?"

Athyr's father thought about it. He knew he was giving away his daughter's freedom, but he wanted her to live. He sighed deeply.

"Yes."

He stood over the baby as she slept. _Oh, Athyr,_ he thought._ I'm sorry. _He gently stroked her cheek as the baby slept on, blissfully unaware of the life that she was about to lead.


	2. A Chance Sighting

Note: This might be a little confusing because my computer deletes the asterisks so the story might seem to jump around a bit.

14 years later

"ATHYR!!! Wake up!" Ishizu Ishtar walked into her younger sister's room and pulled the shades open, letting the sunlight flow in.

"Argh...too bright..." Athyr sat up and rubbed at her eyes groaning. Her mother's prophecy had become partly true. She was incredibly beautiful.

"What would Mother say? She wouldn't like the way her own daughter was running her temple...sleeping in!"

"Well, Father left his temple to Marik, and if you haven't noticed, he's doing worse than me."

"What did you say about me?" The subject of discussion poked his head in. He had grown up to be a truly handsome young man.

"Nothing. Go away." Athyr hurled a pillow at her brother.

"OUCH!!! Why you little -!"

She darted out of the room pursued by a furious Marik.

Athyr stood outside the temple of Hathor. It had been a loooooong day. The meeting of the Pharaoh's council was disastrous. There was a report that the fabled King of Thieves was coming to visit the Pharaoh once more, so the meeting had to be short. She had always wanted to meet him; Marik said that there was no one who could irritate the Pharaoh like the King of Thieves.

"Milady?" Athyr turned around to face one of the priestesses in training. "What is it?"

"Your veil is slipping." "Oh."

She quickly retied it. _Stupid veil_, she thought. _It's because of this that I have no contact with people outside my circle_. Her mind wandered back to around 10 years ago, when her father told her that she had to wear the veil.

Since she was little, she was happily willing to do it, not understanding what she was doing. By the time she had figured it out, she was so angry with her father that she had refused to speak to him. Now that he had died, she regretted that she never had the chance to forgive him. She had lost both her parents, so she had been forced to grow up and take responsibility for herself. But in so many ways was she still childish...

The "King of Thieves" trudged up the path to the Ishtar house. Sure, he didn't need to be there until nightfall, but he wanted to get a head start. Sometimes the house was further away than he thought it was.

Today had definitely not gone as he had expected it. His monthly confrontation with the Pharaoh had resulted in an irritated ruler kicking a "lowly thief" out instead of an honorable king giving an equally honorable king (of thieves) a humongous amount of gold and all the other riches a man could ask for.

Well, the temple of Hathor was on the way. In fact, there it was, about 20 feet away from him, across the street. Maybe he would see that famous priestess, the one who was so beautiful that she had to wear a veil.

"Why does the stupid house have to be so far away?" he grumbled as he kicked an unusually large pebble in his way. This only resulted in the pebble connecting with his foot and causing him major pain. He hopped about, cursing silently. Shortly after, an elderly farmer driving his cart by sort of ran over his foot. Not enough to cause serious pain, but enough to hurt.

"DAMN!!!" He sat down and massaged his foot as the elderly farmer continued on his way at a pace that could match a snail.

Athyr looked at farmer's cart passing by. _This veil is so itchy_, she thought. _No one comes by here anyway. Maybe I can just take it off while no one can see me._

She closed her eyes as her hand slowly reached under her hair and untied the veil.

_Good riddance,_ she thought as she let it flutter to the ground.

He raised his eyes just as she opened hers. Time stood still for just a moment, but that one moment changed both of their lives.

What he saw was the most beautiful girl standing on the steps of the temple looking sad and lonely.

What she saw was an extremely handsome man sitting on the ground staring at her in wonder.

Anyone could see that it was love at first sight.

He slowly stood, ignoring the building pain in his foot. He started walking over to where she stood.

She blinked. He was gone. _Maybe I was just hallucinating_, she thought as she bent to pick up the fallen veil.

As her hand closed over it, another hand touched hers. She looked up into a pair of tawny eyes with a sharpness to them that resembled that of a tiger. He quickly took back his hand and looked away, blushing. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Oh, it's ok..." She let her voice trail off silently, as the two blushed and looked away from each other.

"Well, um...I'd better get going." She quickly stood up. "My brother probably is waiting for me..."

"Oh...ok..." He stood up too. "I have things to do too."

As she walked back up the steps, she tripped and fell down...almost. Bakura was there in a flash and caught her.

"Oh...umm...thank you," she blushed. _Idiot! _She thought. _Why am I blushing so much?_

"Uh...your welcome." _Why can't I say anything? _

Time stood still yet again, as they stared into each other's eyes. He slowly moved closer to her...

"HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ATHYR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Athyr found herself sitting on the steps. Bakura had gently set her down and vanished. Her brother was running over with a big grin on his face.

"Sorry I'm so late. I ran into this girl at the market place...damn, she was pretty...and – hey! Why aren't you wearing your veil? You could get in big trouble! What if someone had seen you?"

"But someone did – "

"Athyr, there's no one around. Now let's go home."

As the two walked off, they were being watched. Bakura sat in a nearby tree. _So_, he thought, _the girl is Marik's younger sister. Intriguing...they are nothing alike..._

He sat in the tree, pondering when he would see her again, just as she was asking herself the same question.


End file.
